Cerebellar Gray Matter Volume, Executive Function, and Insomnia: Gender Differences in Adolescents

Abstract

The cerebellum is an important region responsible for adolescent cognitive function and sleep, and their correlation is expected to show different patterns depending on age and gender. We examined the regional cerebellar gray matter volume (GMV), executive function (EF) and insomnia symptoms to identify their correlation and gender differences in adolescents. Data for a total of 55 subjects’ (M = 31, F = 24, 14.80 ± 1.39 years old) were analyzed. The correlations between cerebellar regional GMV and Wisconsin card sorting test (WCST) subcategories showed that EF was better with larger GMV both in males and females. Far more overall correlations with cerebellar regions were observed in boys, with corresponding correlation strength being higher, and differences in localization were also observed in contrast to girls. Larger cerebellar GMV corresponded to better EF in adolescents. Insomnia did not influence the correlations between cerebellar regional GMV and EF, but more severe insomnia in boys correlated to smaller GMV in the right flocculonodular lobe. These results might implicate that the adolescent cerebellum is involved differently in EF dependent on gender.

NREM sleep stages specifically alter dynamical integration of large-scale brain networks

“…Moreover, it has been previously shown that the sensorimotor domain is related to the anterior cerebellar lobe, while the cognitive domain corresponds to the posterior cerebellar region (Stoodley and Schmahmann, 2010). This particular finding is consistent with the observed co-activation of the anterior cerebellum with regions corresponding to the sensorimotor network represented by iCAP 10 (see also Shirer et al 2012) and Supplementary Table SI-1) Meanwhile, the inferior posterior lobe has been associated to the frontal gray matter, a well-known core area of executive function (Jung et al, 2019; Tiemeier et al, 2010). Altogether, these studies support our current findings on the preferential tendency of posterior and anterior cerebellum to persist in wakefulness and N2, respectively.…”

Structural Alterations in Large-scale Brain Networks and Their Relationship with Sleep Disturbances in the Adolescent Population

“…Although more attention should be given to children and adolescents, who have developing brains, most neuroimaging studies on sleep problems have focused on adults or patients with sleep problems 33 . However, it is known that general demographic factors (e.g., age, sex) profoundly influence the structure of the brain 34 .…”

“…FDR thresholding controls the expected proportion of false positives only among brain regions showing significance 78 . Although conservative levels of FDR (e.g., 0.01-0.05) can be used in neuroimaging studies, FDR control levels in the range of 0.1-0.2 are originally and practically known to be acceptable and have been applied in several neuroimaging studies 33,78,79,88,89 . FDR corrected p-values were calculated by using spm_P_FDR.m with all regional p-value inputs, which is a MATLAB code included in the SPM toolbox.…”

Does Video Gaming Have Impacts on the Brain: Evidence from a Systematic Review

“…The grey matter of the corresponding brain region has been shown to increase during training [20,64]. The increased grey matter of the hippocampus, DLPFC, and cerebellum are associated with better performance in reference and working memory [64,65].…”